Daytona Prototype team owner Michael Shank has come close in the last seven years, but he has never been able to close the deal for a Rolex 24 at Daytona victory. But Shank, who is also starting an Izod IndyCar Series team this season, and his four drivers managed to win the historic 50th-anniversary version of the Rolex 24.

Shank's other team car on Sunday finished third at Daytona International Speedway.

“What a start to the year,” Allmendinger said. He will drive for Roger Penske at the Daytona 500 in February, moving to the team from Richard Petty Motorsports.

Earlier, it appeared the favorite and defending champion, the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Riley-BMW, would be part of the podium celebration. The caution flag flew just before 11:30 a.m. with four hours remaining in the race, setting up what appeared to be a three-way battle to the end among the leader and defending champion, the lead Shank car and the Starworks machine.

With just an hour and 15 minutes to go, that's how the race was unfolding. But the Ganassi car suffered gearbox problems, with time-consuming repairs dropping Scott Pruett to sixth place, while Ganassi's other car, driven to the finish by Juan Pablo Montoya, came home fourth.

Dalziel pitted from second place for tires and fuel with 42 minutes to go, dropping back to third momentarily, moving the two Shank cars to first and second. Allmendinger pitted a few moments later, then Nasr pitted, too, leaving Allmendinger in the lead, followed by Dalziel. The top GT cars, the Magnus and Brumos Porches, also pitted with about 50 minutes to go.

After the final pit stops shook out, it appeared that the DP battle would be between leader Allmendinger and pursuer Dalziel, who was about six seconds behind. In GT, Richard Lietz in the Magnus Porsche was 16 seconds ahead of Wolf Henzler in a TRG Porsche.

Dalziel, however, wasn't able to close the gap.

“This is a sign for things to come for Starworks,” a disappointed Dalziel said afterward. “We only got the car nine days ago, and from nine days to here isn't bad.”

Similarly, Henzler made up a few seconds on Lietz but still finished 9.412 seconds back. The Magnus team consisted of Lietz, owner John Potter, Rene Rast and the busiest driver on the team, Andy Lally.

“This is so amazing and so sweet,” Lally said. “This is the little team that could.”

Lally was the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie of the year but has returned to sports-car racing for 2012.

Ganassi drivers complained throughout the race that their BMW engine, thanks to Grand-Am's enforced limitations, was unable to keep up with the Ford-powered cars on the straights.

“You can clearly see the straight-line difference,” said IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti, a driver for Ganassi's No. 02 car, which he shared with Montoya, NASCAR's Jamie McMurray and IndyCar teammate Scott Dixon.

The fastest lap of the race was run by the No. 9 Starworks Riley-Ford at 126.303 mph, followed by the No. 2 Shank Racing Riley-Ford at 126.299 mph. The fastest lap of the two Ganassi cars was from the No. 01 car at 125.680 mph. This year's Rolex 24 marked the first time since 2005 that a Ganassi entry didn't finish on the event's podium.

NOTES: Not surprisingly, the new Chevrolet Corvette DP entries were fast, but they suffered some teething problems, the worst of which was an apparently catastrophic engine failure just 14 laps into the race for the SunTrust Racing car, driven at the time by Max Angelelli. The car finished 58th and last. The Gainsco Corvette had mechanical problems and an off-track excursion by driver Alex Gurney on cold tires. The best finish of the five Corvette DP cars was the No. 5 Action Express car shared by Darren Law, David Donohue and Christian Fittipaldi, which finished fifth.

-- The top three DP cars were Riley-Fords, and the top three GT cars were Porsches. Expect competitors driving other brands to lobby Grand-Am for performance equalizing before the next race in March.

The Brumos Porsche GT car, incidentally, led much of the race in its class, but a late fuel stop dropped the team to third in class, 13th overall. Was it Brumos legend Hurley Haywood's final race here? “I never said exactly I was hanging up my helmet,” he said. He is, at least, scheduled to be the grand marshal for next season's Rolex 24.

-- The race covered an impressive 761 laps because of the lack of long caution periods. And while there were 14 caution flags, they were all for relatively minor reasons, mostly debris. There were no major on-track incidents, despite some very physical competition in the closing hours by the top DP and GT contenders. Total caution laps were only 58. The race finished just one lap shy of the event record of 762 laps, set in 1992.

-- NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip may have won the Daytona 500, but he had no such luck at the Rolex 24 in the AF-Waltrip Ferrari 458 that he shared with his team co-owner Rob Kauffman and soon-to-be-NASCAR driver Travis Pastrana. The team finished 22nd overall after a variety of problems, including a late-race spin by Waltrip.

-- The 50+ Predator Riley-BMW that included AC/DC singer Brian Johnson and 73-year-old Elliott Forbes-Robinson lost time early in the race with mechanical issues and was never able to make up much time. But Johnson, an experienced vintage racer, said he had an “absolutely fabulous” time. They finished 32nd.

-- The pair of new Audi R8 GT entries had one problem after another, but neither gave up and logged laps that should help the car's development. The Oryx Racing entry finished 45th, and the APR Motorsport car finished 44th after driver Jim Norman slid off the track with 19 minutes to go.

-- In their final season, the Mazda RX-8s, which qualified on top last year, were not able to keep pace with the Porsches, thanks to some “equalizing” by Grand-Am. Actor Patrick Dempsey, hoping to at least match his team's third-place class finish last year, managed only a 10th-place class finish this year, 21st overall.

-- The lone Dodge Viper in the race, fielded by Racer's Edge Motorsports, was a privateer effort that did not end well--a 55th-place finish. But the presence of a lot of top Chrysler executives suggests that the entry might be more than a curiosity, likely with an eye toward running the new Viper next season.

-- Kevin Buckler's the Racer's Group had five Porsche GT cars in the race, populated by an interesting mix of “paid” pros and “paying” gentlemen drivers. (There were, incidentally, no women in the race, which was odd given that more than 200 drivers entered.) The Porsche GT3 Cup car was the most popular weapon in the race, with 23 of the cars entered.